From Esquire Magazine
December 4, 2008
Why the Real Hundred-Dollar Laptop Is a Cell Phone
By Doug Cantor
With more than 80 percent of the global population having access to cell-phone service, the network for a technological revolution in the poorest parts of the world is already in place—it just needs to be harnessed, tweaked, and translated. This is Tapan Parikh's charge. A computer scientist specializing in interface design at the University of California, Berkeley, Parikh studies communications glitches and other problems that hinder the open market and distribution of private aid and then designs simple, open-source downloadable cell-phone interfaces to fix the bottleneck.
For example, when Parikh realized that the efforts of microfinance groups in India were hobbled by paperwork, he came up with a system of embedding financial documents with bar codes. Now, rather than having to keep records by hand, a user can take a cell-phone picture of a bar code and the interface automatically prompts the user—with voice prompts for the illiterate—to input the numbers. The result is accurate record keeping, greater transparency, and a higher loan success rate. It's a technique he's used over and again—retrofitting cell phones so coffee growers can find the best prices for their beans, enabling farmers to better document their aid needs, and arming local health workers with the network to better diagnose and treat illnesses.
His future goal is to apply his ideas to the U. S., and the opportunities are endless—inner-city students using cell phones to do schoolwork, social workers tracking clients with pictures, shelters finding beds for the homeless at the push of a button. The technology is there. Parikh just needs the time to harness it.
